


Catcher

by M_arahuyo



Series: we know only ourselves (and our promise) [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_arahuyo/pseuds/M_arahuyo
Summary: All things must, in the end. Come home.***An epilogue to Pusher.





	Catcher

The processing room smells like all processing rooms: like dust, vaguely of sweat, plenty sour when the stench hits the back of your tongue. Amélie watches what little personal effects she has be slipped into a paper bag, sealed, and then receives it as it’s handed through the passage.  

“Are you ready to go?”  

Her heart is sinking in doldrums. She knows the presence of Angela Ziegler by now—marked by easy grace and light footfalls, the sound of someone who wouldn’t want to be grounded, who’d rather be up in the air. That’s how Angela’s always been to her even before Widowmaker. Radical, brave, open.  

Open: like her face when Amélie looks at her and asks instead, “how are my flowers?”  

Her flowers. She feels for them like all feeling beings feel for things they’ve touched, nurtured, held up with caring, careful hands. Feels for them like the learning-to-feel being she is, all determined affection with precise watering schedules and systematic snipping.  

She loves them all, but she misses her sunflowers the most. They are bright and yellow and orange, and when they unfold to face the sun they can be the most beautiful things Amélie has ever seen. Her heart aches for them the most whenever she thinks of her flowerbeds. She knows Angela knows this, judging by Angela’s smile. 

“They’re fine,” she replies, taking the deflection in stride. Her voice is warm. Amélie would rather it was the opposite. “Zen has been taking care of them.”  

“Good.”  

“Come now. Time to go. Are you hungry?”  

Amélie shakes her head. Angela extends an arm toward her and she steps closer, lets herself be led to where the corridor stretches to a long walk of stainless steel and linoleum floors and she watches the windows, steps into the light they let onto the floor, glimpses puzzle pieces of a cerulean sky where the tree leaves can’t quite cover them up. Not even a month ago she’d bled under a darker brother of this sky, raindrops on her mouth and laughter in the rain resonating somewhere deep in her mind.  

She’d picked up her rifle, gotten up amidst omnic remains and crusted corpses, and strode out toward where she saw an airship’s light.  

She strides forward now. Thanks Angela quietly for holding the door open for her and breathes in a lungful of air that sinks her heart deeper, deeper, waves dunking it down. Her walk down the steps is as slow as poisoned, aching heartbeats. Time has passed her so much that the sight of a calm, Wednesday morning street hits like foreign weather. A car is parked just across them and Amélie half-turns toward Angela, mouth a firm line.  

“Go on,” Angela says smilingly. Understanding but urging all at once. Amélie doesn’t know how to start moving. Angela pushes her lightly by the small of her back. “Get going now. I’ll see you later.”  

Out shudders a breath from Amélie. Angela’s eyes are kind. Swallowing, Amélie walks toward the car, pulls the passenger door open, and slides into the seat.  

Seasons came and went. Tree leaves bloomed and shed. Rain, sunlight, and snow passed overhead, marked yet another year that left Lena sitting alone with a disentangled plastic tree and an old record playing in the corner. She’d have the remains of Winston’s peanut butter jars or Reinhardt and Torbjorn’s beer bottles, or Mei’s cupcakes and Zenyatta’s fruit basket waiting to be cleaned. Friends that came along for the party but couldn’t really fill the void in the apartment up.  

Seasons came and went, and the car still smells the same—a little bit like Axe and the tang of an energy drink. Last night Amélie imagined of Lena in her apartment, vacuuming with a vengeance, grinning while changing bedsheets, taking out old records and books and making a grocery run last because she’d forgotten to do it in the morning. In Amélie’s dreams Lena fluffed out old pillows and warmed the bed meant for two bodies instead of one, changed the drapes, cleared out the half of her closet to make space. In some corner of her mind so deep like a wishing well Lena sang  _Amélie_ _’s here,_ _Amélie_ _’s here,_ and Amélie sang back  _I’m here, I’m here._

Crimes against humanity, they called hers, and they passed her a specter of redemption. A period of service, unquestionable loyalty: touring the continents to frontline operations and going eye to eye with war. There’d been an RAF medal snug in a hollow of her bracer every time. She’d clung to it when nothing else was there.  

She can still feel the squeeze of old fractures from years and months and days ago, if she focuses enough. But it’s all in her head. Angela has long had them healed—her imagination has gotten big enough that it wouldn’t just fit flowers, even fears. She’d been so close to dying far too many times. Too close to not coming back.  

She smells the scent of the car and sighs, still not turning her head.  

“You hungry, love?” Amélie’s gaze flickers over to the driver side, finally. Lena’s hair needs a trim. She’s sporting a scar on her chin that looks like a lopsided cleft and her smile is warm, modest, crinkles at her eyes plentier than Amélie can remember. She wears five years in the crow’s feet of her smile, like a flower at her ear, still somehow pretty. “We could grab a bite to eat, if you want. Have they fed you breakfast?”  

It’s not nearly two years ago when Amélie taught herself to start eating breakfast. Energy in battle is easier expended when one has it in store but she can last on less. For a long time she made it in this way, bleeding then healing then bleeding again.  

“Amé?”  

Right now is a lot like bleeding. Lena’s RAF medal is in the paper bag with her belongings and she squeezes it with one hand, the other clenched by her knee. Lena has been her saving grace since day one, the hero that catches the world’s sores to shield everyone.  

Amélie served her time, took her punishment: Lena caught the collateral damage of being left alone.  

The paper bag rustles. To Amélie’s shame, she realizes she is trembling.  

“I’d… like to—”  

Lena has reached over to hold the hand crumpling the paper bag. Her fingers slip into the hollows between Amélie’s and she pulls their hands linked between them, tight like an old promise: certain like a secret, written for them both, in Morse code sung by a dot of light. She looks Amélie in the face and says nothing of the rapid blinking of Amélie’s eyes.  

“I’d like to go home,” Amélie says slowly, “if you’ll have me.” She looks at Lena and there are teeth to Lena’s smile, the lines at the corners of her eyes stark, the light of her face as sweet as a sunflower turning to the sun. Amélie’s hand shakes and slackens in Lena’s and Lena catches all the weight of it, carries it to her face and presses quivering lips to each cool knuckle.  

“Always,” Lena says softly. Amélie’s heart flutters like a buoy at sea. “Not far now. I promise.”  

Lena draws back to start the car and pops on sunglasses for the sunlight ahead.  

The windows are down. Amélie’s old aviators are still in the glove compartment. The wind, as it rushes: the sun, the sights, the rumbling of this car, the ripple of brown hair at the driver side—they are all reasons to come back, to stay here.  

They go home.  

 

***

 

 _I made a beeline up to the gate_    
_Met with your eyes and it was appalling_    
_We took a rest sitting on our feet_    
_These are the memories I keep_    
_We made the law but it shook the ground_    
_Keeping it working was everything_    
[_That would keep it from all going down_  ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5SDHPiJN0Z7qlUNvXJhPFo?si=Tz4PXK_YQemaTmhspXSj2Q)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my wonderful beta and friend Cold for always holding my hand in my suffering and supporting me w my stuff :')
> 
> thank you for reading.


End file.
